How Morning Phone Habits Shape Productivity and Well-Being

Do you look at your phone before you’re even out of bed? It’s easy to do. Our phones are portals to a world of information, people, and conveniences. They may also be our alarm, weather forecaster, sleep tracker, and meditation guide.

Yet, we feel a little guilty and ashamed admitting to being a “first-thing” device user. While the impact of using a phone first thing in the morning depends on what we use it for, we all know it’s way too easy to slip from utility into random scrolling. Checking the time or the weather can increase our sense of agency—we aren’t late, and we remember the umbrella. However, if we launch into the news, email, or social media, we use the cognitive energy from a good night’s sleep without direction or purpose. We jump right into the pressures of the day without taking the time to reflect on the day’s goals and demands and have lost the chance to be purposeful or “anchored.”

Once the phone is open, it seems harmless to spend a few minutes scrolling. But it’s easy to get distracted by something negative that impacts our mood. Anger, frustration, and envy can cast a negative halo effect over the start of our day, undermining our self-confidence and making us more irritable, impatient, or depressed.

Times to Avoid Social Media Use

Morning isn’t the only time you should be aware of how knee-jerk device use can get in your way. Here are some good rules of thumb:

• Don’t use social media when you’re supposed to be paying attention to the people you care about at home—your kids, partners, family, or friends.
• Don’t use social media right before bed. One study found that blue light from devices not only suppressed the nocturnal melatonin that helps you sleep, but increased the production of the stress hormone cortisol (Figueiro & Rea, 2010). Beyond the blue light effect, content that attracts our attention activates our brain, making it harder to fall asleep.
• Don’t use social media while eating, especially if you are trying to diet. Like when we watch TV, we do not pay attention to what we eat when we use social media. We tend to eat faster and more because we don’t tune into the sensory experience of eating that helps us notice the satiety signals. Media can also distract us from our initial intentions about what we plan to eat (or drink).

First-Thing Phone User Hacks

Looking at our phones first thing in the morning deprives us of the time to prepare mentally for the day. The never-ending dump of information leaves us vulnerable to emotional triggers and can create feelings of dread or being overwhelmed.

Experiment with small hacks that alter your morning behaviors. For example, wait to check your phone until you:

• Leave the bedroom.
• Step outside or open a window and look around.
• Take the dog for a walk.
• Have your morning coffee.
• Spend five minutes reflecting on the day ahead and what you want to accomplish.

Anything that gets us outside before we pick up our phone, like walking our dog, has multiple benefits (Brockis, 2024). Devices are conduits to a busy, demanding world. Connecting with nature, even for a few minutes, reduces stress and is restorative. If we are so hooked to our devices that we enter that world upon rising, we cheat ourselves of a chance to enhance our well-being and remember what matters most.

Take Charge and Find Your Compass

Everyone is different, so it should come as no surprise that our goals are not the same and that we each use tools in a way most likely to help us achieve them. Our behavior is a reflection of our goals. Before you design any behavioral hacks, spend a little time examining your goals so you can make choices so your media behaviors align with your intentions and desires.

Reclaim your boundaries. We often forget that we own our phones; they do not own us. It was hard enough to realize that a ringing phone didn’t have to be answered. Now, with social media, algorithms, and notifications, it’s 100 times harder. Our innate social wiring makes us automatically want to respond to any social connection for fear of missing something or being left out. We all suffer from FOMO. It is not a personal shortcoming. It is a very human response for a species whose survival depends on getting along with others.

Try This Media Use Journaling Exercise

• Cultivate self-awareness about your media habits by keeping a media journal for a few days. Note your media consumption habits, motivations for use, and moods. Keep it simple so you can be as accurate as possible. People tend to underestimate behaviors like calorie intake by about 50% to protect their self-esteem (Lichtman et al., 1992).
• Look for patterns in your media behaviors to learn what works (makes you feel better or increases your productivity) and what doesn’t (makes you feel bad, cranky, or interferes with other activities, like sleep or visiting with family/friends).
• Social media consumption is usually for entertainment, so look back at your goals. Pay attention to when social media use moves you closer to your goals (like connecting with friends, taking a mental break, finding something new and exciting, or satisfying your curiosity) and when it interferes with them by wasting your time, damaging your self-image, or triggering anger, jealously and anxiety.
• Set boundaries. Look for ways to use your preferences to control your feeds. For example, you can turn off your notifications at night, be selective in who you follow, and develop your antennae to avoid clickbait. If looking at people with perfect children, fabulous vacations, or amazing abs triggers a negative response, block them and move on.
• Use your media journal insights to adjust your behavior based on what you learned. You want to improve positive emotions and sleep quality and lower emotional drag, not avoid the digital world. If you are intentional about your media use, you can enjoy the good stuff and eliminate or lessen the bad. Be realistic and don’t try change everything at once. That never works. Make small, sustainable changes where you will see the benefits and be motivated to continue.

Social Media Hacks Can Improve Power, Confidence, and Mood

Any hack we try is an act of intention. Nobody needs to start the day with self-inflicted pain. Negative emotions lower productivity, decrease perceptions of energy, diminish cognitive capacity, and make us generally less pleasant to be around. When we make a plan and try it, we increase our sense of power, confidence, and mood (Robinson et al., 2019). We are then ready to start the day with some front-loaded positive emotions, which can translate into increased resilience, productivity, willingness to try new things, and being more open to experiences.